Feeling Mountains Rise Out of Make Believe Seas
by InsideOutsideWithin2468
Summary: The Bennett daughter who always made mistakes that she shouldn't.
1. Vitality

(Prologue)

She was the one who always made mistakes.

Most of those said mistakes could be tempered, undone, changed or convinced to be elsewhere, the issue truly lied in the fact that she kept making them.

No matter how many times she tried not to, as she walked down the school hallways, her eyes glazed over (a thing of commonplace as of late), her eyes caught her reflection in a passing window.

She didn't look any different to what she did earlier that day. A strappy blue summer dress cascaded past her stomach like nothing was even there.

And God did she try to convince herself that nothing was there.

(What would Grams think, dad, Bonnie, hell the entire town?!) Serena was stupid and went to a stupid party she knew she wasn't supposed to be at, wound up blackout drunk, and woke up naked and sore.

Now two months later, that decision was kicking her in the stomach. Literally.

She was only fifteen for fuck's sake, and her Dad and Grams had so much to deal with, considering her little sister Bonnie was practically a ball of energy at just seven years old. Besides with her Mom deciding to up and leave and her Dad distancing himself from everyone and her Grams focusing her sole attention on Bonnie, there truly was no place for this mistake.

So she laughed. She laughed and she probably shouldn't have but she did. It's funny, how some go through life, in a truly not funny way.

(She spent all this time wearing a mask because she didn't want to share herself with another set of people. So she has to keep this calm, cool, and collected persona so that others don't think they've got one up on her. She thinks she can get away with it, and when she comes home from another day of fighting off demons within four walls disguised as an institution, to then again prepare herself to fight again within the four walls she's supposed to call home. It's truly a never ending battle made even worse.)

It's interesting.

She had thought she had it all figured out.

Head cheerleader. Beautiful. Enemies close and subordinates far below. And then it all comes crashing down.

Serena Marie Bennett finds herself stopping a foot away from the door of her first class, instead of going in she turned on her heel and swiftly left, because she just couldn't. Not today, maybe not ever. All she knew was she needed to get away.

She didn't even know the slightest thing about babies.

But she did know one thing.

She could only keep this a secret for so long.

* * *

There was a time when Serena experienced the world in vivid light, color, sound-endless possibilities.

The trees called to her, whispering green leaves drawing her outside, bright yellow rays weaving through her dark hair as they touched the earth. She had always been magically inclined, there had never been any hiding for her because there truly couldn't be- at least not from herself.

When she first mastered her first levitation act she could remember the look on her mother's face, disgust almost, but more tame. Similar to disappointment but much harsher. Her mother had then dug her nails into the young girls shoulders, holding her still.

"Never do that again."

Serena's eyes had flooded with tears and the moment her mother released her she ran to the nearest bathroom. She slid to the floor, pulling her knees to her chest and wondered why she couldn't be a perfect little girl, like everyone else. She had decided, right then and there, to hide. To hide in plain sight from her mom, her dad, and even her grams.

Vivacity and resiliency only go so far in a little girl.

That was when she learned that it was safer to not be so bright.

That was the first time the lights of the world around her dimmed.

Serena had always been a brilliant child so finding information and challenging herself and in turn herself without anyone knowing was turned into a game. The people in the books she found, the witches, were always so strong and brave and she wanted to be like them.

Her powers grew and no one ever knew and that was good enough for Serena.

Now there was no hiding.

It seemed with her child came an increase in power, and her inability to control it was stark.

The way the truth comes out is horrifying.

So is the aftermath.

* * *

When she leaves Mystic Falls, alone on a bus with one suitcase and the swell of her belly to keep her company she tells herself that everything was okay. That even though her father wanted nothing to do with her and her Grams was disappointed she would be fine.

So she didn't cry, didn't even show that any of this upset her.

She just left.


	2. How to Destory Yourself

Lucy isn't unused to the sound of girls crying in bathroom stalls.

High school had been a tiring experience, after all. Friendly to no one.

She never made the habit of talking to any of the crying girls.

It's not like she could do anything for them. Besides, she learned after her first few tries back in freshman year that, as empathetic as she is, she's not particularly good at being comforting. She's not good at much of anything when it comes to other people, really. She can feel everyone's pain, but she only ever seems to be able to make it worse.

But—something is different, this time. The crying is muffled, muted. Something about it is nagging at Lucy Bennett, and she hesitates, looking at the stall door. Nothing seems all that unusual. Just as she starts to move on, dismissing her strange feeling, it swings open.

"Serena?" Lucy's eyes widen. Those same gold eyes, the ones that sit on her mantel in her home (the only picture she has of her extended family) stare back at her.

She freezes at the sound of her name, one foot out of the stall. She meets Lucy's eyes, her jaw clenched.

"Lucy," she says neutrally after a moment, she had been much younger when they first met and Lucy can't help but be pleased the young girl even remembered her.

Her voice is calm, cold, but the evidence of her emotion is all over her face. The light mascara is smeared, and her eyes are red.

"Are you okay?" Lucy asks. She tries to make her voice soft. Comforting. Serena looks—fragile, in a way that Lucy has never seen before.

Serena snorts. "I'm fine," she says. The words come out sarcastic and grating. She goes to the sink and wets a paper towel, dabbing at her eyes.

Only then does Lucy take in her rounded belly. What it means. _If she did her calculations right, this girl is recently turned 15, pregnant, and alone._ "Serena," Lucy says again, but fails to follow it with anything. Serena pauses in her cleaning and meets Lucy's gaze in the mirror. They look at each other for a long moment. It has the strange...charge, as if something very significant is happening.

Right now, she just knows that Serena looks tired. More than tired. Hollow.

"I want to keep it," Serena says, snapping them both out of whatever trance they've been in.

"What?" Lucy says. It comes out a bit abrasively, and she winces, but Serena doesn't seem to notice her tone.

"The baby." Serena turns around, leaning against the sink, and meets Lucy's eyes in real life, instead of through the mirror. "I—I don't want to—to give it up." She shrugs. "I never have."

"Oh," Lucy says. "Oh. Serena…"

"I have to, I just—" Serena shakes her head, and Lucy can see fresh tears forming in her eyes. "The baby needs to have a life. A good life. With—with parents who love them and can afford to feed them and give them a home—they need to be good people." There's an urgency to the way she says the last words. "They need to be good."

"You are good too," Lucy says. It's the wrong thing to say.

Serena closes off.

Lucy watches as it happens, as a mask locks back down over Serena's features. Without a word, Serena goes back to fixing her makeup. Lucy watches, a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. She just wants to make things better, but she's upset Serena all over again. She pulls a bottle of eye drops out of her pocket, and Lucy suddenly realizes that this is habit for her.

She's used to this.

Apparently, Serena Bennett has spent a significant amount of time crying in the bathroom, and Lucy isn't sure what to do with that information.

There's a duffle bag by her legs to large to be something she's just carrying around. Her fingers grip the edge of the sink, turning white.

"Why aren't you in Mystic Falls?"

Serena barks out a laugh.

"Haven't you heard? I'm not welcome."

"Shelia-"

"Doesn't care."

She pushes past Lucy and walks out into the diner, her head down and her shoulder slumped.

* * *

Serena is quiet.

She doesn't take up much space and the space she does take up she makes sure to clean it right back up.

She's subdued and constantly reading.

It's odd really. Feels like living with a ghost.

She's pensive and always seemingly so far away in that mind of hers.

"How did this happen?" Lucy blurts out one evening and Serena doesn't so much as flinch, she just drags her eyes over to Lucy's holding an intensity, a raw power that Lucy had only ever contributed to ancient vampires.

The minutes tick by

And Lucy's stomach gives a harsh twist. She's trying not to look in her direction, but she can't help it.

There's just something about her that's drawing the older Bennett in, and she feels powerless to stop it. It isn't even as if the girl is doing anything. She's just sitting in the corner, a pensive look on her face and a storm raging in her deep gold eyes.

If Lucy hadn't already witnessed many atrocities in her line of work, she's convinced she would be terrified of what she sees there.

The girl still hasn't moved a muscle.

She's sitting perfectly straight, those emotions continually swirling in her eyes in such a dangerous way that Lucy's convinced she's going to have to remove her from the room at some point. She can almost see the explosion waiting to go off.

"I don't think it was consensual."

The air seems to be sucked out of the room with that quiet, broken confession.

There's an anxious aggression to her words. Her arms are crossed over her chest, though it looks like more of an attempt to hold herself together, and every so often her fingers trail down her own arm in a slow, absent caress.

"I'm not sure if how to define what happened. I don't even remember what happened." Serena looks out the window. "I always thought I had everything figured out. Things happen all of the time. Good and bad. My mom hates me for having magic. She left. My Grams loves Bonnie more than she could ever love me. I was my mother's teenage pregnancy and she always resented me for that. My "dad" isn't really my biological father... these are all things that happened, things I've managed to get through. I survived them with a determination I didn't even know I had, until I just did."

"Serena..." Lucy begins but she isn't sure what to say, she never knows what to say in the midst of grief.

Her hand trembles. Lucy just wants to break everything that has ever hurt this girl.

"I didn't know what to do," she says quietly. "So, I just ran."

"You know I would've taken you in sooner if you immediately came to me, right?"

Serena straightens, her face a blank mask again and Lucy knows her time is up.

Lucy fights back a sigh; she had wanted a glimpse into Serena's mind, but now that she's gotten a glimpse of it, she's starting to realize it's not all it seems. She had known it wouldn't be all sunshine and rainbows in that mind of hers, but Lucy selfishly wanted to be the one who saved Serena Bennett.

Now, she's beginning to think she just wants to care for her instead. Because Serena doesn't need saving, she needs a hand, because she matters, and she doesn't have to be alone all of the time.

* * *

"What are you writing?"

Serena looks momentarily startled, and she immediately closes the notebook in her lap. Her expression settles again, and Lucy is relieved she doesn't look angry or irritated as she approaches. In fact, she just looks resigned.

"Just some random things," Serena eventually answers, which surprises Lucy, because the two of them haven't had any verbal communication in a while. "I'm actually brainstorming baby names."

Lucy blinks. "Can - can I hear some?"

Serena traps her bottom lip between her teeth for a moment, visibly thinking it over. She eventually nods and reopens her notebook. "I'm having a girl, by the way," she says.

Lucy feels a smile spread across her face. "That's amazing, S."

"It is," Serena says, and her voice is filled with a sense of wonder. "I - I want her to have a strong name, you know? Something to carry with her through her life; something to remind her that, although the circumstances of her birth are... less than ideal, she's always going to be strong and resilient regardless."

Lucy, who is sitting in the chair beside Serena, gently touches her forearm. "For what it's worth, I think you would make a great parent."

It's maybe the wrong thing to say, because the light in Serena's eyes dims significantly. She clears her throat. "Perhaps," she murmurs, and then scribbles something on the page.

Lucy sneaks a look, and caches sight of Miranda, Emily, Ayanna, Cecilia, Mary, Alias-

Serena sighs, and then closes the book. "Maybe I'll just know when I see her," she muses, and then her expression turns pained. "If I'm allowed to hold her that is."

Lucy has no idea, but she still says, "Of course they will let you, Serena."

"Even if I give her up for adoption?"

Lucy still doesn't know, but she still says, "Yes."

Her shoulder sag slightly, almost in relief.

"By the way, I quite like the name Alias," Lucy adds a moment later.

Serena glances at her, a tiny smile on her face. "Me, too."

* * *

In another world, Lucy might be able to ignore the deep brokenness in Serena's eyes, the same way everyone else seems to be able to do.

It tugs harshly on Lucy's heart, and it takes until the third trimester for her to say, "I would miss you, you know?"

Serena is busy trying to cram for her exam (online schooling a blessing in disguise), and it takes her a moment to look away from her notes and give Lucy her full attention. "What?"

"I would miss you," Lucy repeats, carefully reaching for Serena's left wrist and tracing the pads of her fingers over the faint scars. "If you were gone. If you were suddenly just not here, I would miss you. Gods, I would miss you so much."

Serena meets her gaze steadily. "I don't want to go anywhere."

"Then don't."

"I won't."

"Good."

Serena rolls her eyes. "Idiot," she says, teasing clear in her eyes. "Now, let me get back to work. I might be a badass, but I still have to pass."

* * *

The first time she meets Katherine Pierce, Serena is running into her.

At this point she waddles more than she genuinely walks and her belly seems to be throwing off her center of gravity, although to be fair she wasn't expecting one of Lucy's friends to be around.

"I'm sorry," Serena mutters keeping her head lowered. As it always is these days. She immediately pulls back and only when Katherine doesn't say anything does Serena lift her eyes.

The woman before her looks like an older version of one of Bonnie's friends, (Eleanor, or something like that), and her eyebrows are furrowed as she looks at Serena's belly.

"Who are you?"

"Serena," The younger girl introduces quietly. "I'm Lucy's cousin."

The woman with dark chocolate hair tilts her head. "Did your parents kick you out or something."

"Or something," Serena mutters back.

Serena is saved when Lucy enters the apartment and almost immediately does the girl slink back into her room, quiet and ghost-like.

* * *

"I have a proposition for you."

"A proposition," Serena echoes. Her eyebrows raised. "I'm not robbing a bank with you."

"Be serious, please, Serena," Lucy says. "It's about…the baby...Alias?" Serena's hand goes to her stomach, and she looks away.

"I haven't decided if I'm staying with that yet," she says. "Or if I'm…going to name her at all."

"You should," Lucy says. Serena looks back at her, eyebrows slightly raised.

"Yeah?" she asks, and Lucy breathes an internal sigh of relief upon seeing that the mask is still gone. Serena's voice is curious, not defensive.

"Yes." Lucy takes a deep breath. She stays where she is on the edge of the top stair. She thinks she might need the high ground; what she's about to say could make Serena…upset. "Because I…I think I've found away for you to…sort of keep her."

"What?" Serena asks. Lucy shrugs, half-smiling, waiting for Serena to ask her to explain herself.

Serena doesn't.

"I told you not to tell anybody," Serena says, clenching her jaw. Lucy's heart drops. "I told you—"

"Serena." Lucy walks down the steps, walking quickly towards Serena. Serena takes a few steps back, and Lucy realizes suddenly that she is afraid. She doesn't think she's ever seen Serena afraid before, and the sight makes her stop in her tracks.

"S, please listen," Lucy says. "I just want to help."

"I didn't ask for help, Lucy!" Serena snaps. And Lucy can't help but flinch at how scathing her tone is.

"Please," Lucy says again. "Don't shut me out. Not yet. Let me explain first."

Serena closes her eyes, a muscle twitching in her jaw.

"Fine," she says, and it's still tense, but it's not soulless. Not yet.

"We have some cousins in Baltimore. They, well she, is married and has a good job, decent with magic-" Serena nods, and Lucy forces herself to continue. "I told her because I—I wanted her to adopt your baby." That forces the last remnants of the cold mask off of Serena's face, replaced by sheershock.

"…What?" she asks.

"Hear me out," Lucy insists, even though Serena is making no attempts to leave. "Ernest Bennett has been trying years to have a baby, she's unfortunately infertile and her husband well he isn't much better in that department. They can provide her with a good, safe home, and money, and everything else you mentioned before. And they'd be willing to make it an open adoption, Serena. You could see her whenever you wanted."

Serena shakes her head, once, twice. Her hands cupping her belly.

"I can't do this."

"Serena-"

"I have nothing to say to you," she snarls. That tone of voice hasn't come out of her since the bathroom incident. "Nothing at all."

"I get you're mad, but you can't keep putting this off, Serena. You have to do something-"

"I am not mad," she hisses, finally looking up and the vacant, distant look in her eyes breaks Lucy. "What I am feeling is the furthest thing from mad. I don't even know what I'm feeling."

"So you are mad?"

In a burst of rage, the fireplace jumps to life, flames nearly pouring out of it. "Do you- do you have any idea what this is like?" she asks and the pain in her voice is nearly too much to handle. "Do you know how much- God," she spins around, shoulder hunched. She can't help but breathe heavily in an attempt to reign in her emotions.

"Serena?" Lucy says quietly. The strength in her voice surprising even herself, though it means nothing because Serena is still shaking. "Will you please look at me?"

She draws tighter around herself.

"Please?"

Nothing.

"Please, Serena?"

Serena doesn't lift her head. "I can't," she says and she sounds strangled. "I can't," she repeats. "I'm going to end up saying things I regret."

"Say them," Lucy says immediately. "It's okay. I can take them."

"I can't," Serena let's out a sob. "I can't, and you shouldn't want me to."

"I need to know what you are thinking."

Serena clenches her eyes shut. "I don't want to abandon her...the way Abby abandoned me- I- I don't want to be like Abby, but I am and I don't know how to be better."

"This isn't abandonment," Lucy immediately pushes back. "And you aren't like Abby. At all. You aren't in any place to take care of a child, and you know that. _I know how much you want to keep her, Serena. _And I know that you know you can't."

Silence fills the room.

"I could see her?" Serena is half-whispering, and Lucy can't help but take another step towards her. This time, Serena doesn't back away.

"You could see her," Lucy confirms. "You—you need to understand, though, Serena, she would still be their daughter. Not just legally. If they're going to agree to this, they're going to be her parents."

"But I could see her," Serena says again. "I could hold her, and talk to her, and—and—" She stops there. She isn't really looking at Lucy anymore; her eyes are a bit glassy. Lucy reaches out and takes Serena's hand.

"You could do all of that," she says. "You won't be her parent, but you could still be her mother." Serena nods slowly, her gaze sharpening once more. "I think I would like to meet them first, can I- can I do that?"

Lucy smiles warmly.

* * *

Ernest and her husband, Leo, pay for their flight to Baltimore.

Serena carries herself with something Lucy can't quite recognize these days.

There's something about this Serena that commands.

And she's different again when she meets Ernest and her husband Leo. With a lightness, a sweetness that immediately enchants the wife and husband.

Lucy burns with the desire to demand for the reasons why, but it's unimportant now. This girl may always remain an enigma to her, and that's… okay.

It's not, but she's forcing it to be.

"You wouldn't make her feel ashamed of her magic. You would nurture it. Help her and it grow." Serena says suddenly and they all turn to her. The young Bennett's jaw is tense and her fists clench, but that's all that's immediately apparent.

But then her eyes flash dangerously, and the fury startles Lucy in a way that shakes them all.

"Yes, of course," Ernest immediately affirms.

"I have to leave her," Serena says, and she almost snarls when she says the words. "I have to go back to school and return to my life, as if - as if it even means anything anymore. As if I have to forget," Serena sucks in a breath. "If I have to do that, you have to take care of her with everything you have."

The girl looks perfectly put together, every little thing in place, but it's obvious she's not okay.

Serena squares her shoulders, recovering from her almost-breakdown, and looks Ernest right in the eye. She's practically pinning her in place; forcing her to listen and pay attention. Ernest has never felt this with anyone - not even her superiors - and the truth of that makes her palms sweat.

"You are not allowed to do anything less than love her," Serena says clearly. "You can never abandon Alias. Can never try to break her, or lessen her, because she is worth everything. Do you understand?"

Lucy knows she should make sure the girl understands she shouldn't be like this, especially to her own family.

But Serena's words sound like an instruction.

A demand.

No, a command.

Lucy is almost disgusted with herself at the fact that she already feels herself following the order and it wasn't even directed towards her.

Jesus.

"Promise me," Serena finally says. "I have to know that somebody is going to keep looking out for her. She deserves it and, if it's not going to be me, it has to be you, so you are not allowed to stop. Promise me."

Ernest audibly swallows, and then says the most dangerous words of her entire career. "I promise."

* * *

The baby is born on rainy day in late August.

Serena is bone tired, and weary, and tired of crying about the life that she's leaving behind here, in the choice that shes making.

Lucy has been solid for her, but its not until she steps into the room and tentatively says, "I know that you feel like you are losing everything today, but you created utter perfection," that she feels it's really over.

The baby is asleep on her shoulder, and its tiny hands are fisted against her neck, and Serena watches as Lucy moves closer and sits gingerly on the edge of the bed.

"How are you feeling?"

"Like I got run over by a bull," Serena says honestly, her hand warm against the baby's back.

Lucy doesn't say anything; just watches them both for a very long time, and then she takes out her phone and snaps a very slow, carefully framed photo.

"I know you won't want to see this for a very long time- but it's here, for when you do, okay?" she reaches for Serena's hand, holding it tightly.

She wishes Lucy would wrap her arms around her and just hold her. It's the kind of affection that people show each other in movies, but not one person in her life will actually ever show her, because it's a sign of weakness, wanting soft and comforting forehead kisses.

She's been weak long enough now, and she's delivered the excuse she had for it. It's over.

"What are you naming her?" Lucy asks.

"She's not mine to name."

Lucy gives her a knowing look.

"Her name is Alias Marie Bennett."

Lucy runs her finger down the baby's tiny, tiny legs.

* * *

Lucy is pretty sure she is going to have a hand-shaped bruise forever etched into her skin, where her arm was being squeezed by Serena.

Serena is the first one to hold her when she's born before she's handed off to her new parents.

"She's so small," Serena murmurs. This is not the first time she's observed this in the few hours since they brought Alias home from the hospital to the Bennett house. She seems fascinated with just how minuscule a baby really is, staring at Alias's tiny fingernails as she drinks from a bottle.

"She is," Lucy says, smiling. "She's also asleep, I think." Alias has been a remarkably quiet baby so far, and Lucy is desperately hoping that will continue.

"It's going to take some getting used to," she says. "Thinking of them as her parents, instead of me."

"I know." Lucy doesn't want to overstep her bounds, but she can't resist—she puts an arm around Serena's shoulders. Serena doesn't resist the contact. She actually leans into it, resting her head on Lucy's shoulder. "But we have time, S. It's going to be okay."

Serena inhales sharply, and Lucy feels her tense up beneath her arm. For a moment, Lucy prepares herself for the mask to come back up, for Serena to lash out at her, but then Serena exhales slowly, shakily.

"Serena," Lucy says, turning slightly to wrap her other arm around Serena as well, pulling her into a hug. "What's wrong?"

Serena shakes her head and buries her face in Lucy's collarbone.

"It's—it's going to be okay," she says, her voice trembling. Not just her voice, Lucy realizes—Serena's whole body is shaking in Lucy's arms. "It's gonna be okay, Luce." She lifts her head, not breaking their embrace but shifting back enough to look Lucy in the eye. "Do you know how long it's been since I've believed that?" Lucy reaches up, wiping away a few of Serena's stray tears with her fingertips.

"I'm guessing awhile," she says.

Serena half-smiles, her breathing beginning to slow once more, and nods vigorously.

"Would you like to go to bed now?" Lucy asks. A thought suddenly occurs to her. "Have you slept at all since Alias was born?"

Serena shrugs. "A little bit at the hospital," she says. "But yeah, I'd—I'd like to go to bed, if that's okay."

* * *

Twelve days later, when she is back at Lucy's apartment, Serena goes for a run.

She doesn't look at her dinner and see calories or miles she'll have to run these days; she just sees food. Just survival, health. But Serena knows what her body can look like, and this—stretch marks, leftover pregnancy weight, fat in odd places, a total lack of muscle tone—this isn't it. She just wants to look in the mirror and see herself again.

So Serena laces up the running shoes she hasn't worn in months and takes off down a route she googled—four and a half miles, around the pond and back. She knows it'll be hard; she hasn't really worked out in months, but she's sure she can take it.

She's wrong.

Serena lies down on a bench when she gets to the park, chest heaving, spots in her vision. Her brain feels like it's full of steel wool—scratchy and undefined, andpainful. She should've brought water. She really should've brought water. There's a few vending machines by the park bathrooms, but she's not sure she can drag herself that far to buy a water bottle. Certainly not without catching her breath first, at least.

By the time she's caught her breath, though, Serena doesn't really feel like moving. She wonders absently if she can just take a nap here on the bench. The sun is pleasantly warm, but not yet hot, and the hard wood feels like heaven beneath her back. Plus, she's not sure she can move.

"Serena?" a familiar voice says, and Serena's eyes slip open again, squinting against the sun. With an immense effort, she rolls her head to the side and sees Katherine approaching the bench.

"Katherine, right?" Serena asks, her voice hoarse. The brunette raises her eyebrows, stepping up beside the bench.

"Yeah," she says. "You look disgusting right now."

Serena groans. She doesn't have enough energy to bicker with Katherine. Instead, she just closes her eyes again. A moment later, she feels movement near her face as Katherine sits down beside her head on the bench.

"Are you alright?" Katherine asks. Serena hums.

"Went for a run," she mumbles.

"A run," Katherine echoes, a note of amusement in her voice. "A bit more difficult than you remembered?"

"So much fucking harder," Serena says, the profanity slipping out easily. "I used to have abs, Katherine," Serena says. "Abs. Do you know how much work that was?" She shakes her head.

Katherine laughs at that. "It is a struggle and most of us don't naturally just bounce back."

"Well that sucks. Hey, do you think you could buy me like five waters from that vending machine I think I might actually pass out if I stand up."

Katherine makes an amused sound, but still gets up and goes to the vending machine.

Only then does Serena consider her words.

_Us. _

* * *

Serena feels strange.

The weight just won't drop as quickly as she is hoping.

And she's pushing and pushing herself, until she literally drops.

Ten minutes later, she's lying on the sofa and drinking some water while Lucy hands her a wet washcloth to put on her forehead.

"I don't knowwhatyou were thinking," Lucy says, clearly annoyed. "You could've gotten sunstroke, and passed out somewhere anddied. Are you not aware that labor is a serious physical trauma and that most women need six months to fully recover from it? I know you feel uncomfortable with your body but pushing yourself like this is in no way healthy."

Serena sits through the lecture, she listens. .

That steel-wool feeling has never quite left her head, and she's tired all of the time. She starts sleeping past noon for the first time in her life, staying up late doing nothing on her phone and sleeping until her stomach is roaring at her to get up and eat. She sleeps, and runs, and shops with Lucy and Katherine, and even as her body starts to come back to her, Serena feels like she doesn't quite fit into herself anymore.

She ignores it and studies year round, this pregnancy threw her off the course she wanted her life to take.

She's determined to get her life back on track.

* * *

Lucy comes around the corner into the kitchen and Serena is standing in front of the fridge with the door open, staring into it blankly.

"S?" Lucy says. Serena doesn't respond.

Frowning, Lucy reaches out and taps her shoulder. Serena starts slightly, turning to face Lucy. "What are you doing?" Lucy asks. Serena blinks, glancing back at the fridge. She lets go of the door handle, and the fridge falls shut.

"I don't know," she says. "Just spaced out, I guess."

"Are you alright?" Without thinking, Lucy reaches out, pressing the back of her hand against Serena's forehead to check for a fever. Shockingly, Serena doesn't shy away from the contact—although she does roll her eyes at Lucy's fretting.

"I'm fine," she says. "I'm just tired."

Something nags at Lucy. She had done a lot of reading on pregnancy when she had first learned about Serena, wanting to help anyway she could, and right now, a few articles she had stumbled across are sticking in her mind.

"You're tired a lot," she says.

"I did have a baby."

"A month ago, yes," Lucy says.

"Lucy." Serena's tone is a warning, one that says, don't push. Lucy pushes anyway.

"Would you say your chronic exhaustion started after you gave birth to Alias?" she asks.

"I wouldn't say I'm chronically exhausted," Serena says, exasperated. "I wouldn't say I'm exhausted atall, actually."

"Right, because the leftover spaghetti was just so fascinating to stare at for three minutes," Lucy replies.

Serena's eyes seem black then, dead but shining. Shark's eyes.

"Would you leave it alone?" Serena snaps. Her eyes narrow, too thin to be called a glare, but acerbic all the same.

Lucy let's Serena walk away, but she can't let it go. Something is wrong. So very wrong.

* * *

"I think," Serena says one quiet evening, and Lucy immediately starts listening because these days, Serena doesn't speak much at all. "I think we should talk about something."

"We talk everyday."

Serena then pins Lucy with those vicious gold eyes of her. "No we don't. Not really."

That makes Lucy flinch.

And when she does she makes Lucy feel stupid. It's not purposeful or at all in any way meant to be degrading. But in a way it is.

When she doesn't voice her thoughts, Lucy tries. "Are you okay?" she then looks down. "I know it's a stupid question, considering what happened, but are you okay?"

It is a stupid question, so it deserves a stupid answer. "Do I seem different?"

"You're a little different," Lucy answers. "But you've always been a little different. Brilliant strategy. That way no one ever knows if something is wrong."

"I think there is so much wrong with me that it's all tangling together into this massive thing." She leans her head back, stares at the ceiling.

Lucy reaches for her hand, and Serena doesn't even try to grip back. It was like she didn't care if she was able to hang on.

She stares at her cousin- she looks bored, and the smile that was so infectious before is nothing. Lucy doesn't know her- never really did- but the sad thing is, it's still probably better than anyone else.

When she first met Serena she thought she wanted for things bigger than her. Now she wonders if she feels anything.

Lucy is tired of trying to make her feel.

* * *

Things get worse before they get better. The first year after Alias's birth is mainly spent ignoring things.

She is supposed to be better now. Is supposed to be soft and new. Supposed to be someone entirely different from herself.

She stops eating normal portions of food around the same time Alias's first birthday approaches.

It probably stems back to an issue of Serena thinking she somehow failed her daughter. Or doesn't deserve someone to love the adult softness of her hipbones or the new fullness of her breasts. It's a physical separation, and she almost would like to not exist in her own body.

Serena gets better.

(or her mask just comes together more completely).

And then she gets her life together in a way that leaves the people around her adequately satisfied.

* * *

And she does.

Eventually she graduates, she excels at magic, she gets sent monthly pictures of Alias that she looks at everyday. She goes to college for free on all of her academic scholarships.

Everything is finally becoming better.

And then nine years later she gets a call.

Shelia Bennett is dead.


	3. Warding

_Authors note- If you want a visual or how I envision Serena Bennett, think Jhene Aiko._

* * *

It all started the second Serena Bennett stepped into Mystic Falls.

"Are you sure about this?" Lucy had asked.

And back then Serena had been sure. So certain that she was making the right decision. Seems even now she is still making mistakes.

Serena smiled then, tightly and shook her head, short and dismissive. It wasn't fair to Lucy to be so curt with her- she's done nothing wrong. "I just," Serena closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "I thought I would feel something more."

When she left it was early in the morning and Lucy was watching Serena with those sad eyes and the closer she got to Mystic Falls, the closer to hell she felt.

(She should have trusted her instincts).

The town of Mystic Falls, as of the last census has a population just over two-thousand people. It is a quiet, homely place- the kind of place where people who are born there rarely end up anywhere else, or they leave as soon as they have the means to.

Once she entered town limits it started.

The power flow directly into her. As if- as if she left a buried chest, deep in the earth, filled with power. And as soon as she came back the chest opened and the power left behind is flying into the core of her being.

(She should of recognized that power as a foreign entity. As not apart of herself, but it felt so familiar...so necessary that she allowed it.)

Just like she allowed herself to attend the funeral of Shelia Bennett.

She had sat in the back, hidden.

"Good afternoon. For those of you who don't know me I'm Bonnie Bennett, Shelia's grand-daughter," She had looked down at her notes then. "My Grams was a good person. She was loving, and attentive was and the best friend a person could have."

"Lies, lies, lies," Serena repeated over and over in her head.

"I was lucky to have her in my life," Bonnie continued. She spoke of her love of teaching (lie) and her generosity (lie) and the way she was always there for her family over the years (lie).

She felt nails in her arm. The only thing keeping her from losing her mind.

Next there is laughter, Bonnie must of told a joke, not that Serena heard it.

"And she loved a good Scotch," Bonnie laughed with watery eyes.

"That's the only thing she loved," Serena thought.

She could feel the room standing, now. But she wouldn't.

Serena could feel the sound of heavy breaths pushing her further and further away from the crowd. She decided it was as good a time as any to disappear. She would not be missed. Who misses the truth when the lies are so comforting?

So she turned away from Shelia, and her grief, and her sister.

Looking back, Serena would always regret that decision.

* * *

The evening is quiet, only the whisper of the wind through mostly bare tree branches breaking the silence that has settled since the sun began to wane. But for now, at least, it's only freezing cold, and quiet. Too quiet.

It is, Serena considers, positively eerie, which she supposes is fitting; both for her current locale and what she intends to do.

She crosses her arms over her chest, then uncrosses them long enough to rub her bare hands together for warmth and the stamp some heat back into her cold feet, before crossing them once more. Huffing under her breath, she curses the circumstances—that have brought her to stand in a cemetery, beside a freshly opened grave.

She sighs, checks her watch, and sighs again, louder this time. Glances to her left, to the casket that has not yet been lowered into the earth. "What happened, Grams?" She asks the corpse that lies within.

Her dead grandmother, unsurprisingly, doesn't answer.

Not yet, anyway.

Serena sighs again for good measure.

The cemetery's maintenance crew will come along to lower the casket into the vault, and cover it with dirt. But for now, the casket and the woman in it sit atop the grave, and with one last glance at her watch Serena opens the lid.

Inside, is her Grams, just as she remembers her.

Her hands are joined over her chest and a rosary is wound through her fingers. Her skin holds a waxy, unnatural pallor of the recently deceased after being worked over by a mortician. Nevertheless, the mortician did a good job, especially since it seems like Grams is just sleeping.

Beside her is her favorite pieces of jewlery and the records that Grams would play every morning.

"You won't like what I am about to do, Grams." Serena mutters quietly, mournfully.

She thinks about Bonnie, and as always, it hurts.

She lifts her hands ready to do what she has to do.

There is a rather simple term for what it is she can do, she knows; in fact, it can be summed up into a nice, neat little one-word package.

Necromancy.

She prefers not to say the word aloud, though, due to the connotations.

No matter how times have changed, there is still something inherently unwelcoming about necromancy.

She learned a long time ago that the less people who know, the safer she is. The more likely that she can go home each night to her own bed; a worn out, second-hand, and overall terribly uncomfortable mattress but her own all the same.

It doesn't take long.

Serena sinks further into herself, feeling the flutter of that power like fingertips drug lightly across the smooth surface of dark, still water. The resulting ripples feel at first like nothing more than the charge in the air just before lightening strikes, growing stronger and stronger still until the ripples feel more like waves, and then something more solid that he can wrap his mind's fingers around and pull to the surface. Then it's there, crackling beneath her skin and in her eyes. It's thrilling and terrifying, and the only time she ever feels like herself.

Then, she raises her hand, and ever so gently presses her palm to her Gram's cheek.

Serena's breath leaves her in a shaky hiss as the power she's called forth so quickly and suddenly leaves her, flowing into the corpse she touches.

Almost as if the breath itself has been repurposed, Grams sucks in air in a sharp, painful-sounding wheeze, opens her eyes, and promptly begins to scream.

"Grams," Serena says, dropping her hand to touch the dead woman's shoulder, which only serves to cause milky-white eyes to dart her way, and turn the screams in her direction.

"_Grams_," she tries again, shouting to be heard over the recently revived Shelia Bennett's wailing.

"Serena?" Grams mumbles her eyes glassy, dead.

"I need to know what happened, Grams?"

"You've been gone for so long-"

"I know," Serena mutters through the painful tightening of her chest, and the shooting pain down her arm. She's used to that, though; feeling whatever the corpse was feeling in the moment that they died, but knowing it's a phantom pain doesn't make it any easier to bear.

"Where is your baby?"

Serena swallows thickly. That question burns, and cuts, and drags through her. She feels tears burn her eyes but blinks them back, Shelia Bennett isn't getting her tears.

"Grams, you died and I need to know what happened-"

Grams shakes and shivers. "I'm dead?"

"I'm sorry but yes. I need to know what happened," Serena tries to keep her voice delicate, grieveable, but necromancy isn't extendable. It is merely reanimation, not another chance at life.

"Bonnie needed me to open tomb...I wasn't as strong as I once was."

"You did everything you could," Serena tries absently to soothe.

"My everything wasn't as good as it once was."

The young Bennett doesn't argue that point.

"My poor Bonnie, my sweet girl, she's probably in so much pain." And Serena could feel the ice and venom beneath those words. "She's always been the sweetest girl." Serena knew that translated to "Serena is terribly mean and cold." (It had for years.)

"Why did Bonnie need you to open the tomb, Grams?"

Her lips curve downwards, the milky white of her eyes darting to Serena's. "Those people she surrounds herself with. Elena Gilbert and her entanglement with the Salvatore brothers."

Serena's frown deepens. "Salvatore brothers? You mean Katherine Pierce's toys?"

"Katherine wasn't in the tomb." Gram's eyes jumped around. "Is Bonnie okay?"

Serena let's out a hysterical laugh. She doesn't mean to, but she let's go of Grams. Let's go of the tether that holds her in their current plane of existence, hardly hearing it as she falls back into her silk-lined resting place with a heavy thwump, once again as dead as she was when Serena arrived.

All of that power slams back into her, like a rubber band held taunt enough that it snaps, and although it tries to find its place back hidden under Serena's skin it does so clumsily, leaving her feeling too large for her body to contain.

She thinks of Bonnie, and then forces herself to not think of Bonnie.

Her feet stay planted in the grass and she can feel a tiny spark from the decaying remains below her.

God, this situation is so fucked.

She wanted to sleep, huddle into a ball and lose days.

* * *

Serena doesn't go to Bonnie first.

She needs to see if it's true, if Elena Gilbert really is Katherine's doppelganger. If everything her visions showed her would come to pass.

When she sees those dark eyes for the first time in full light her stomach drops.

She wants, more than anything to drag Bonnie, kicking and screaming, as far away from this stupid town as she can manage.

Instead she finds the lonely property with too much land, she technically is inheriting, although that is a complicated matter in itself.

She doesn't hesitate to apply as an art teacher at Mystic Falls High.

She's missed art, the thrill of creation, getting lost in her subject. She started painting when pregnant with Alias and hasn't been able to stop since then. She has however expanded her creative outlets into music and writing as well. (They all provide temporary relief, but none seem to ever fully express everything within.)

With her new book about teenage pregnancy and post-partum depression taking off and hitting the best-sellers list, her pen name keeping her identity locked down and more money sliding into her bank account, Serena doesn't need a "job." But selfishly, the idea of being near Bonnie takes precedence.

She is after all, more than qualified.

* * *

Bonnie feels Serena before she sees her. The raw power, circling like some beacon.

Bonnie doesn't react at first to seeing her sister. Doesn't feel anything. Until Serena tilts her head just so, like she's considering something very important.

She's caught momentarily by the way Serena moves, quiet, hardly more than a swish of fabric and the click of her heels.

And then there is anger.

So Bonnie sits, she stands.

She walks, she paces.

Up and down, up and down. She paces because her legs need to move. They need to walk for all the times they hadn't walked.

She felt her blood boil. The sand inside was burning hot and choking her, from everywhere, and then it alternated with freezing cold. Her mind going blank with swear words she was unwilling to release. She wanted to get blind drunk, and scream, and cry, and drown herself in the nonexistent sea.

Then Bonnie met Serena's eyes. And she knew that Serena could see everything. The transparency was annoying and brutal.

"Bonnie."

"I'm fine."

Or as fine as she could be on any given day.

Even if her magic is flaring out uncontrollably.

But Serena looks calm in front of the growing winds and static in the air, a half- smile curving her full lips.

"Walk with me," Serena says quietly.

"I'm not going anywhere with you," Bonnie snarls, echoing her inner thoughts, even as she paces back and forth in front of Gram's house. "If you want something from me, you're going to have to tell me now."

Serena huffs, her eyes cutting towards Bonnie. "I don't want anything- I just-"

"What? Want a piece of Grams' will?"

Her eyes darken in response, and the temperature seems to drop ten degrees. Serena looks deadly with anger, but soon enough her shoulders fall and all that anger curls right back inside of her.

"I don't care about that."

"Then what do you fucking care about, seeing as sticking around and not leaving me wasn't a big priority of yours."

Her mask slides firmly into place. "_Enough."_ She growls out. "You are allowed to be angry, you are allowed to hate me, but you will let me speak. Am I understood, Bonnie."

Bonnie swallows feeling as if she just sucked a sour lemon, the winds start to pick up again but she manages to tramp down any physical reaction to the words.

"Yes."

Because damn it all to hell, she doesn't know this woman. This woman who stands tall (despite her short height), and dresses professionally. Bonnie doesn't know this woman who glides with every step instead of clumsily dancing around, she doesn't know this woman whose physical appearance had changed so drastically.

Bonnie doesn't know her sister at all. And it hurts in the worst way.

She almost wishes Serena just stayed away.

"Do you remember why I left?"

Bonnie scoffs," You got in a fight with dad and you ran away. Just like mom did."

Serena forces herself not to flinch. "A fight about what, Bonnie? What was your father so upset at me for?"

"Does that matter," Bonnie finally snaps, stomping her foot as her chest heaves erratically. She wants to punch this woman in the face, and claw at her skin until she finds her blood. _"You left me to-"_

Serena shakes her head, not willing to listen to this any longer in case she does something cruel. She has a tendency to lash out in the worst ways.

"I wasn't given a choice, Bonnie."

Bonnie freezes because she in no shape or form remembers that. She tries to meet Serena's eyes but Serena looks anywhere but her.

"They made me leave, and yeah I could have come back but I didn't because I wasn't in any place where I could come back and not destroy myself in the process."

"That's not true."

Serena holds Bonnie's eyes. There's nothing behind them, just a neutrality that makes Bonnie shiver.

"Believe what you will," she says after a long moment. "I didn't come back for your forgiveness."

That causes Bonnie to scowl. "Then why did you come back."

"Because Grams raised you and she is gone. Because your father didn't even bother to come back here for her funeral much less check on you. Because you're alone and I don't want that for you."

Serena doesn't carry her sins on her shoulders, but rather on the top of her chest where the pendant lies. She can feel it now, pressing into her neck, indenting its small, sententious shape into her skin.

The burn is overshadowed by the burn in her stomach. Right over the skin that once stretched and protected a young baby in it.

Serena rubs her hand over her stomach, feeling ashamed, and then hating herself for feeling that.

"I just miss her, you know?" Bonnie finally said with a broken expression.

No, Serena did not know. But still she nodded.

* * *

She likes her eyes.

It's one of the few things she's thankful to have and didn't have to change. It's the first thing she looks at whenever she's inspecting her face every morning. She has to remind herself to look at them when she's trying to hide the rest of her flaws.

Serena allows herself a genuine smile in the comfort of her bathroom. She doesn't think she's a beautiful person a lot of the time, but she affords herself this moment in the mornings.

And, well, that has to count for something.

Bonnie doesn't react well to seeing Serena as a teacher at Mystic Falls High, she's the youngest one on staff at the age of twenty-four, and everyone who remembers her looks like they have too many questions to ask so Serena avoids them.

Being back in Mystic Falls is hard.

She still has the scars from what is was like before Alias. They may not be visible, but they exist. Everytime she sees a cheerleader and remembers when she was one and everything was easy. Everytime she passes by her old locker, or the bathrooms she took her pregnancy test in.

And then there is Bonnie.

Bonnie is another reason she feels close to tears all the time.

But all she can do is allow the days to flow.

"Serena?" A voice calls out from the hallway, when she turns she sees Jenna. And for the first time in a while Serena smiles.

Jenna Sommers.

Somewhere between the dramas of high-school they became friends, even when at their lowest and most petty, they overcame. She is as pretty as Serena remembers, and Jenna holds no hesitation as she comes over and throws her arms around Serena.

"It's been so long," Serena replies wrapping her arms carefully around the other woman.

"It has," and Jenna's eyes are already filled with tears. She truly never expected to see the eldest Bennett daughter again, not after what happened. And the details threaten to overwhelm her in a way, because while Serena had always been pretty, now she is goddess like.

Everyone had thought Serena was ruined. Would never recover.

Barely her own person when sent away.

And here she is glowing with something ethereal.

Serena's hair is longer than it was in high school, no longer just barely touching past her collarbone, now it rest below her breasts in wild pretty curls. It makes her look younger, more relaxed. And although her height didn't change, her shape certainly did. Hips wide (although Jenna can't help but wonder If that particular feature was tied to child birth), curvy figure, and a dimpled smile.

The startling differences between her and Bonnie have taken hold as well. These days, Jenna can clearly see the two have different fathers.

"You look amazing!"

"Me?" Serena says with a warm laugh. "Have you looked in a mirror recently?"

Jenna shakes her head, the stress from taking care of Jeremy and Elena, the lack of sleep because of her thesis, all seem to melt away. "No time to unfortunately."

"Oh yeah, I heard about that, taking care of teenagers as much of a nightmare as it sounds."

"You bet," Jenna says warmly leaning her weight on Serena's desk.

And a familiar smirk crosses Serena's full lips. "Now that we are both old enough to drink and escape with the help of alcohol..." She throws her eyes over the room as if she's about to tell a secret and she doesn't want anyone to hear, "Mimosas?"

"Mimosas," Jenna immediately confirms.

Wednesday Mimosas become a thing.

And it's nice to feel normal.

Even if her sister regularly keeps things from her and everything feels so out of place inside.

* * *

She meets one of the big things her sister keeps from her the following Monday.

Bonnie is curled on the floor, power circling her, it's the spirits magic. Serena can tell the second she lays eyes on her.

The bones of Rudy Bennett's house groans at the combined weight of Serena and Bonnie, as if too full of power.

Falling to her knees before Bonnie, Serena brushes back her hair. It isn't necessarily loving, or intimate, (Bonnie wouldn't appreciate that) but it is like pulling back curtains to let the light in.

"Serena," Bonnie mumbles, slightly disoriented.

"I have magic too," Serena says more sharply then she intends. "You could have come to me." _Why didn't you come to me?_

"I don't know how long you will be here."

That causes Serena's eyes to shine. Not with happiness or pleasure, but they glitter with water nonetheless.

A knock breaks through the silence.

And then a bang.

And then a repeated beat against the wood of the door.

Taking in a deep breath before floating towards the door and opening it quickly. The sudden burst of ice that follows let's Serena know, almost immediately, who (what) she is dealing with.

"Who are you?" Damon bites out with hostility lining his tone, he immediately looks out over her shoulder, searching for Bonnie. As his eyes sometimes get stuck doing.

Elijah Mikaelson however is struck. Because those eyes.

They're such an unusual color. Elijah thinks maybe an earthy olive green and looks back. No that's not quite right. Nougat? Almost… but. She turns her head a fraction and the light catches the irises of her eyes. Firelight through whiskey. Molten honey in the late afternoon sunlight. This woman's eyes are the most fascinating, beautiful shade of gold.

Her hands are alarmingly still, careful, as she raising an unimpressed brow, "I should be the one asking questions."

There's a moment where silence reigns.

And then the oldest Bennett rolls her lovely eyes.

"That would be when you two introduce yourselves. It is only polite, after all."

"Only in the name of politeness," Elijah eases in, "I am Elijah Mikaelson."

Serena gives a quick nod, her eyes now vicious and deadly. Protectiveness makes her jaw tight and he thinks absently that's she's beautiful, with all her controlled fury.

She doesn't offer her name back, just moves her eyes over to Damon. Waiting.

"Damon Salvatore." The oldest Salvatore says shortly. "Now who are you?"

"Bonnie's sister," She replied calmly, but still giving herself no true identifier.

"Bonnie doesn't have a sister." Damon is quick to argue, "And you look Asian. Bonnie isn't Asian."

Another silence.

"Are you actually an idiot?" The girl who claimed herself as Bonnie's sister snaped back. "I'm Bonnie's half-sister. We have different dads stupid. And my father is Jae Kwŏn."

"Is that name supposed to mean something to me?" Damon snarled.

"White Americans," Serena mutters, "The lack of culture is really a never ending battle."

Elijah chuckled then. "The Kwŏn family is almost as renowned as the Bennett family when it comes to magic. Rumored to have once been wolves who asked for divine intervention after being hunted by humans, granted magic by nature itself, now are known to be the world's most powerful elementals."

Serena narrows her eyes at the man. He feels different than Damon. Darker. Colder. She fights back a shiver.

"Now that's out of the way," Serena svowls, "I want to know why the hell my little sister needs the power of a hundred dead witches."

And the answer that follows make Serena nearly throw up.

"You're telling me," Serena had said slowly, her tongue lined with blades, "That neither of you could find a witch that wasn't a _seventeen year old girl _to do this. That neither of you even trying to intervene when a virtual child is being primed to take on an original?"

They both stare at her, silent as death.

She doesn't hesitate slamming the door in their faces.


End file.
